Get a load of this: a non-paying, uninsured ("we won't pay for health insurance premiums, but we easily find ways to ship hundreds of U.S. dollars to our native countries, making such 'remittances' our countries' biggest income source nowadays') illegal alien is treated at tremendous public taxpayer expense at a U.S. hospital. The U.S. hospital considerately provides bilingual medical staff to deal with the woman, whose hospital stay has gone on for months now. What's the response of the illegal alien patient's family, who are more than likely illegal aliens themselves? Why, to accuse the hardworking American nurses who are taking care of the woman of giving her head lice. "After the nurses found lice in Mrs. Sanchez's hair, the family accused them of passing it to her." I think if you looked up the word "ingrates" in a dictionary you might -- or should -- find illegal aliens such as these. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- Sun, Feb. 01, 2004 Watching the red numbers grow By Richard Gonzales Special to the Star-Telegram Some years ago, the chief financial officer of a local for-profit hospital reviewed his revenue report and called me. In brusque, exasperated tones, he wanted to know why the comatose Mrs. Sanchez was still in ICU and why she was still in the hospital. The undocumented immigrant had no insurance, and no one was willing (or could be compelled) to pay for her hospital care. It was my job to get her out -- to stop the hospital's financial hemorrhaging. The ethical dilemma for me was whose interests should be served first. The hospital paid my salary, and my job was to provide effective discharge planning that would benefit the patient's recovery and the hospital's bottom line. Listening to the edge of his words, I detected the panic of watching the red numbers grow daily. I had attended enough monthly managers' meetings at which the CFO presented computerized color graphs of the hospital's revenue, the daily and monthly census and projected earnings to know that the color red was not good on a patient or a spreadsheet. Our stockholders, I was told, expected us to turn a profit for their investment. At the same time, I remembered the brain-damaged, mid-40s woman with long, flowing hair, breathing with a respirator connected to a "trach" that had been cut into her throat. Her sons and daughters, and their spouses and children, took turns sleeping in the ever-lit waiting room for the first month. During the next two months, they sat in her acute-care room surrounding their unresponsive mother. After the nurses found lice in Mrs. Sanchez's hair, the family accused them of passing it to her. The hospital threatened to get a court order to cut her hair unless the relatives gave permission. A daughter-in-law who worked in a beauty salon agreed to cut it. After three months of bilingual, sometimes heated discussions between the hospital staff and family about her eventual discharge, I, too, wondered whether the hospital could afford the high costs of compassion. Unbeknownst to the family, I had contacted Parkland Memorial Hospital's discharge planning department personnel, who advised me on how to secure the Mexican government's authorization to transport her back to Mexico without family permission. The recent remarks of Gale Pileggi, CFO of John Peter Smith Hospital, after the hospital's board declared that it would now allow primary care treatment of undocumented immigrants are troubling: "It's clearly the mission of this organization to take care of the indigent. The question is, where is the money going to come from?" Indeed, the CFO echoes hospital administrators' common lament. To keep their doors open, hospitals need bucks to pay the nurses and other hospital professionals, buy high-tech equipment and medicines, perform maintenance and deal with lawsuit claims. The JPS hospital board made the ethically correct decision to extend primary care services to the undocumented immigrants. All humans have a right to quality health care. But I wondered from the CFO's comment if the board had truly considered the costs. Many whom the hospital will serve work in high-risk, manual-labor jobs that do not offer health insurance. I had seen enough immigrants in the ER, dirt still clinging to boots and clothes, to know that their injuries can be traumatic. The theory from health planners and executives such as Dr. Ron Anderson, CEO of Parkland, is that primary care is more cost-effective than paying for emergency room treatment. A common complaint is that the poor overuse the ER as an outpatient clinic. Reports of obesity in America, the generally poor health habits of the poor and the high-sugar, high- starch Mexican diet portend more cases like Mrs. Sanchez's. Hypertension, diabetes, cancer and heart disease care nothing about citizenship and borders. Mrs. Sanchez's family had said that she suffered from hypertension and had been taking medicine to control her blood pressure but decided on her own to stop taking them. Her decision was catastrophic. On a snowy day, I called the ambulance to deliver Mrs. Sanchez to the home of one of her sons. Another son had quit his job, learned how to clean the trach and feed her through a feeding tube. The hospital paid for a home health nurse to visit her several times a week for a few weeks to ensure the quality of her care. Several months later, Mrs. Sanchez died at her son's home, and my hospital had one less worry. Source: http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/7842946.htm "If ye love wealth better than liberty ... servitude better than ... freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsel or your arms ... May your chains set lightly upon you. May posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams
